Okay,  you just have me a major case of ... HUH?   :huh:  :m_wink:

Quote - Our nature is more to care about who is the biggest Americanist Idol loser worshipper instead of where are we going where did we come from...

Wait, I'm confused, are we supposed to worship the winner or the loser, or the loser winner or is the one whom loses actually the real winner? And, and... is it idolize or worship, do those two mean the same thing, or are they sufficiently different, and how many years before it doesn't really matter? Does the schrodingers cat care, and does it care when it's in the box or outside of it, is a cat capable of caring, and do we care if the cat cares?   ;)

[Sowwy, i''s fwiday awfewnoon, and I'm hafing an affack o'jus plain siwwy]

Quote - I guess it is in the nature of human beings to assume that our own composition is of such perfection that we shouldn't expect anything significantly different to exist at all... Or it is in our nature to be narrowminded and block ourselves for posibilities that we cannot relate to previous expereince.
Something like that anyways :P

It's in the epistemiology of the human awareness and existence.... here, you might find this interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

That's not 'our nature' it's the nature of mediocrity.
Just think, if 100 is the average IQ, then close to half of the people may be below 100. ;)
Remember that when you have one of those days when you feel like you're surrounded by idiots.

(Shhh, I know it's more of a bwell curve, just sounds funnier when you tell the story this way)
[Did I mention stupidity and ignorance are my biggest pet peeves? ... Oukay, Kitty, off the soapbox... shoo...]

That BIG render... so far it's all in my head  ;)

I should figure out how to render an uptight pink SOW looking at itself in a mirror, asking the comfortably floating blue SOW... does this reflection make my bee-hind look fat?
Should I stay away from smooth highly reflective long-wave making winds?
But then again, those short waves make my texture look all rough and bumpy...
The blue SOW commenting, you look wonderful tonight, dear, and quickly submerging into the quietness of the underwater world, I need go feed the lobsters...  Will you be ready in time for the Bubble Ball?
The Blue and Pink SOW comic strip!  [I know, I know, I'm easily entertained]

Over-Inflated Chrome Sphere Over Water !!!

Quote - Conniekat - looking forward to see that render

Huh, umph, hmmmm...
I dunno how long it'll take me to render something THAT BIG  :m_laugh:

Guyzzz, guyzz, hold on, it's the technique and presentation that really counts, not the size!
[ducking and running]

........... !!!!!!  ... no, wait....
Come to think of it, there needs to be some sort of uniform criteria for measuring the pecking order ...   LOL, I think I feel a render coming.
...............................[ducking and running].............................................>>>>>>

Quote - With posts like the one above, I might actually forgive ConnieKat8 for using Max.........I said 'might'...

I'll grow on ya before you know it! :m_wave:   :m_tongue2:

Yeah, much like Agent Smith, I too use Thumbs plus a lot for printing (in addition to photoshop).

Usually I don't pay much attention, if any to DPI.  If I have an image which is total of 1024x768 pixels, and want to print it on an 8x10 piece of paper, I know it will be pushing it. I'm getting barely 100 dots per inch on printed paper. With most printers this can look pretty pxelated. Although, with certain printers, the drivers and printer settings have way of getting around even that by adding little bit of printer created diffusuion, so you get a soft focus effect, rather then hard edges pixels.

It also very much depends on the image itself, what is depicted. If it's a complicated scene with a lot of detail which needs to be shown in focus, you want to push the number of pixels as high as you can. If you;re doing a photograph with a soft focus or an abstract with not so much detail, you can get away with a lot fewer pixels.

I've made prints at 100DPI that people wouldn't believe were 100 DPI because of the quality. I've also seen 300 and higher DPI printouts that didn't look very good.

Higher isn't necessarily better. It's knowing the best setting for what you are trying to accomplish that counts more. For me, this came with experience and trial and error. You need to get to know your rendering program, your printing program and your printer drivers. There are settings in all of those that can afect your end result much more then just plain DPI. So much that I tend to be almost completely unaware of DPI settings in my images.

I look at it every once in a while in photoshop when I need to resize the image to fit the paper. Even then, I don't go by the DPI, I just glance at it as it is displayed in the dialog box. I'm always aware of my overall image size in pixels.

Depending on the audience....
Here's what I mean... Where is the image going to be presented? Is it going to hang on the wall somewhere where the closest anyone is going to get to it is 5-7 feet away? How much detail can a human eye pick up from that far away? Looking from 7 feet away, human eye typically can't tell a difference between an image printed at 600 DPI vs. 300DPI. It has a hard time seeing a difference between 300 DPI and 150 DPI (when the printer setting are done right).

Are you doing a piece for a home decoration for someone that is not overly art savvy, or someone who is very discriminating? Are you doing a piece for a gallery or something that will be juried?

Sometimes I need to do an artboard wich will be displayed where people will just glance at it and move on. For those I know I can lowe the quality. Other times, I know I'm making a project map which will be laid on a conference table, and will be studied in detail, almost inch by inch. For those, I know I have to have very crisp detail. There were times I rendered them in several squares and composited them in photoshop.

Also, you need to see based on the coloring and the type of the image, what kind of the file type is best suited for it. Out of rendering I first save at the highest grade, but then I take a small piece and see if JPG, or TIFF or a GIF, and color depth, or indexed color and similar variations in settings don't give me manageable file size, and preserve the detail I need. I really don't have a 'canned' solution for things. I handle them case by case, whatever fits each image the best.  

Just my 2c  HTH

Oh, you guys are like so.... 'you guys!'
Is this like playing mine is bigger then yours?  :m_laugh:

I'm not sure what the problemis...

I've rendered images up to 8000x8000 pixels in bryce, printed them on large size HP plotters and mounted on presentation boards many times. Usually I print out of photoshop.
Office plotter has a 36"roll, where I printed up to 36"x90" strips. I had an exhibit that had to be done at 80"x80" about a year ago.  I use Bryce at the office to render or pretty up exhibits of terrain models I make.

My general rule of thumb is to not gotoo much below 150 dpi for a printed image. 100DPI if I was going to push it. Just depends on the audience.

LOL,
you mean I should have paid attention to the whole thread???
[kitty sighs - how emabarrasing]
LOL  :D

Quote -
The average IQ around here is (pick a number between 20 and 40) on a normal day. If we can keep Agent Smith and the Bryster away it climbs to around 50.

Quote -

Would that be measured in rays per pixel or maximum ray depth?

Whadda heck are you guys going on about???  :m_confused2:
Render me confused!